The Boy Who Cried Ghost
by NerdyWriterGirl
Summary: AU; Oneshot. Ever since he was fourteen, all the people around him have known that Danny could see ghosts. But he has a secret. And someday, that secret will come back around to haunt him. A little OOC, not bad (sorry). Rated because I'm paranoid. (Don't own DP)


**Alright, I know I should be updating Capture, but I had an English assignment I had to write, and decided to craft this lovely fanfic for it. Of course, details will be tweaked and names will be changed so my class doesn't recognize it as Danny Phantom when I read it out loud to my class on Thursday, but still. You guys can enjoy it for what it truly is. **

**Warning, AU, some characters are a little OOC. It just happened, and I apologize for it. **

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I was fourteen when I told my mom about the ghosts. Well, that I could see ghosts. She and Dad were both ghost hunters. They were always doing experiments having to do with ghosts and the sort. They worked down in the lab almost all the time. Jazz, my older sister, and I were pretty much left to our own devises in the house. And then I decided to tell them about the ghosts.

I remember when I told them. I walked up to them, stood right in front of the huge 'ghost portal', and declared, in no fewer words, that I could see dead people.

Mom and Dad were worried, of course, I mean, what good parents wouldn't be? At first they seemed happy about having a 'psychic' in the family. Took me under their wing, a little. But then it got old, I guess. They took me to psychologists, physiatrists, and all sorts in between, all of which deemed me to be perfectly healthy. They ran tests, experiments, and practically everything they could think of. I was even put on all sorts of different medications, but I told them none of them worked. I could still see the ghosts.

The first one I told Dad about was my uncle Vlad. "Dad, what is uncle Vlad doing in the kitchen?" I asked. He looked at me, face going white. My uncle had died the week before.

I think they eventually came to accept it, because after a while it wouldn't even faze them.

"He's standing in the middle of the lab." I proclaimed. "His face is partially ripped off, like he went through a paper shredder. I can see bits of skin hanging off." I grimaced. "His head's at a weird angle too. There's something sticking up through his neck. He's dripping blood everywhere. Ewww, I think one of his eyeballs just popped out. Can't you see it, Mom?"

"Uh-huh. Sure honey." She would say between sparks flying up from her blowtorch.

All of my friends at school would make fun of me. "Ghost-boy." they used to call me, especially the bully, Dash. But I did get one friend out of it. Sometimes I thought Sam was only friends with me because I was a "medium". She was a bit of a goth, into all that creepy dark stuff. At least she wasn't teasing me like the rest of the kids.

But there was one thing I never told anyone. Not even Jazz. One thing I always kept to myself.

I was lying.

I was always lying. Since that day when I was fourteen. I couldn't actually see ghosts. Who could? I was just an attention deprived kid with a large imagination. I was smart enough to recognize that, and I was smart enough to pull of the whole "psychic" thing for a whole two years.

It was actually pretty easy to convince the doctors, they weren't quick to jump to the fact that I was lying when my sessions were lining their pocketbooks. My mom was too concerned about me to see the inconsistencies, and Dad too stupid to notice. It wasn't until one morning, a couple of months after I was turned sixteen, that my lie caught up to me.

I woke up that morning the same way I always did. The house seemed quiet, Jazz long gone for college. Mom and Dad were down in the basement working on their latest invention. But something was off. I could feel it. Something in the air. I was shivering all morning. I ended up putting an extra long-sleeved shirt on under my usual t-shirt before I left to house for school.

All day I felt like someone was following me. I kept turning, trying to see behind me. I could just grasp this shadow, something darting around in the corner of my eye. I could see my breath all day, as well. Shivering, my breath fogging up around me, is how I met Sam by her locker that morning.

"Something's up." I said, walking up to her.

"Something... ghostly?" She whispered the last part, her wild violet eyes darting side to side.

"What? No. It's weird. I've been getting this creepy feeling all day, like someone is watching me. I've been cold too." I pulled my jacket around my neck for emphasis.

"Maybe you're being haunted." She suggested, pulling books out of her locker to shove into her backpack.

I moaned, throwing my hands up into the air. I caught Sam shiver out of the corner of my eye.

"Creepy, man." was all she said, before turning and sauntering down the hall.

"Fat lot of good you were, 'best friend'." I muttered.

I got home at my usual time, and found my parents working in the lab as always. I came to rest on the bottom step, pausing, not actually wanting to enter the lab. Mom was working on some sort of large gun on one of the counters.

"Hi, honey. How was your day?" She asked, never taking her eyes off the weapon.

"See any ghosts today?" Dad asked, his voice less than enthusiastic for a ghost hunter. I guess he had heard the regular spiel to many times before.

I shook my head. "Somethings wrong." I told them, rubbing my arms in a futile attempt to stay warm.

Mom nodded, waving her hand. "Uh-huh. That's nice dear. I'm glad. Jack, sweetie, could you hand me that carbon-hydraulic ecto-arch?" She kept her eyes on her workstation the entire time.

"Whatever. I'm going to go do my homework." I stomped up the stairs. My room was at the very end of the hall, past my parents's and the bathroom. I closed the door behind me, flopping onto the bed.

"I can _feel_ this. Something is wrong." I pulled myself up, rubbing my face in my hands.

It was then that I looked up into my small mirror, hanging opposite of me on the wall. I had to do a double take, staring at my reflection, before lurching to my feet and staring into the round piece of glass. "What the-..." Was all I managed to say.

My reflection was disappearing.

I could see through it. Straight to the wall on the other side. My appearance was off too. My normally dark black hair was pale, almost a white. My eyes looked electric green, the color of some of the chemicals in the lab. The normally solid image was wavering and fading, fast. As I watched, I slowly got dimmer and dimmer before disappearing from view altogether. I glanced down at my hands reassuringly, examining to make sure they were still there. After confirming that, I doubled checked my beginning paranoia.

I ran down to the first floor, stopping at the top of the stairs of the lab to yell down at Mom.

"Mom, my reflection disappeared!" I'm ashamed to say that my voice did in fact crack a bit, but given the situation I'm sure that it can be forgiven.

"Good for you, honey!" Mom called back up.

I could feel my face fall as I made my way back into my room.

"A good night's sleep. That's all I need. A good night's sleep." I chanted it over and over again until, at four o'clock in the afternoon, I fell asleep.

The next morning wasn't any better. I woke up to my arms having a slightly translucent appearance.

"Ahhh!" I let out a small scream, then immediately grabbed my throat. I could barely hear myself. A deep echo resounded throughout my voice. I must have sat in my room for a good half an hour, just staring at my now see-through hands, before I realized I was late for school.

Thankfully, my English teacher, Mr. Lancer, didn't even notice me walk in the door five minutes late, and started roll.

"Fenton!" He called out my last name finally.

"Here." I said. His eyebrows furrowed and he looked up.

"Fenton?" He called out again.

"Here!" I yelled as loud as I could, waving one partially invisible arm.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't see you there." He moved onto the next name.

I finally made it to lunch, and met Sam by her locker. It seemed as though my condition was worsening. This morning I could barely see through my hands, and the invisibility was only increasing.

"Sam." I said as I came up to her. She didn't react, just kept putting her books away.

"Sam!" I yelled. Still nothing.

"SAM!" I practically screamed it. Finally, almost painstakingly, she seemed to hear me. She slowly turned her head before focusing on me.

"Oh, hey there. I didn't see you." She said. She turned to me. "You okay? What's up?" Her voice was brimming with mild concern.

"Do I look different to you? Like, see-through? I told you yesterday, something weird was going on." As I tried to talk to her, I watched as her eyes slowly dropped out of focus, like she was staring at the lockers behind me.

"Sam." I snapped my fingers in front of her face a couple times.

"Huh? What?" She looked around a little confused. "Oh!" She said when she caught sight of me once again. "Did you say something?" She asked as she shifted her purple spider backpack on her shoulder. Her eyes drifted out of focus again. She glanced around the hall before shrugging and walking away. "Weird."

All the while I was screaming her name, begging her to look at me, anything. It continued, the whole rest of the day. By the time I got to my last period, I couldn't catch anyone's attention for more than a couple seconds. I ran home that day.

I got to my door, twisting the handle to burst into the house. Imagine my surprise when my hand went right through the door knob. I tried a couple more times, my horror rising as I couldn't grasp the shiny brass. I tried to pound of the door, but my arm went right through that as well.

I slowly put my hand through the door, followed by my arm, until I got the courage to jump through. I opened one eye I hadn't even realized I had closed to see my familiar living room. I ran down to the lab.

"Mom!" I yelled, running up to her. "MOM!" I screamed. I turned to my other parent. "Dad! Daddy!" I could feel the tears leaking down my face. "Say something! Look at me! Anything! Mom, Dad, please!" Sinking to my knees between them and the broken portal, the same place I had stood two years earlier, I choked back sobs. "Mom-... Dad-… please..." I begged, but their faces remained unemotional and uncaring, completely invested in their work.

My eyes darted across the lab, coming to rest on the 'Fenton Ghost Finder' they had invented. I screamed at it, begging for it to say something, pick up on me. But nothing. I finally retired to the stairs, curled up on the bottom step, fists grasping my now white hair, watching them.

It was three days before they finally called to police to report that I was missing, and that was only because Jazz called to find out how I was doing.

My "invisibility" stopped at mildly transparent, but other people could no longer see, hear, or feel me. I watched from my spot on the stairs as the police searched the house. They left after about two days, saying they'd call them if there were any developments in the case.

They cried, of course. They weren't totally unloving or neglectful. Jazz came home, and mourned with them for a long while, but even she had to return back to her life, and to college.

After Jazz left, they retreated to the lab, only leaving it for food or the bathroom. They completely threw themselves into their work, almost never stopping. I was with them, there. Sometimes on my stair, sometimes sitting on the floor next to them, as I had lost the ability to touch any of our furniture. They only went out to go to the grocery store, one time which I found I could no longer leave my house. It was like an invisible wall separated me from the outside world. That separated all of us from it.

They stayed that way for five years.

I remember the day they left. The furniture stayed where it was, all the lab equipment, everything the same as when they were there, but one day I looked around and they were gone. I waited for them to come back, but they never did. I stayed the same, unaging in a crumbling house. No one bought it, and it slowly fell into disrepair. I sat, between what used to be a lab table and a huge, wiry, hole in the wall. Whispering to myself. Telling myself ghost stories, about a young boy, with black hair and blue eyes, who thought he could sense spirits, and wondering where that boy had gone.

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**Okay, it got both away from me and a little sad there at the end. **

**I'm sorry for that little Vladdy reference in there, I just couldn't help it. There's also a very obscure Doctor Who quote in there, if you're up for the challenge. **

**The prompt for English was copying a message from one of the moral stories she (my English teacher) gave us, and then creating a different story with the same moral. I chose "Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction" even though I don't really get how that is a moral, I guess I'm not supposed to argue with the teacher.**

**Alright, so. I hoped you like it. I always appreciate criticism, constructive or other, especially before Thursday, when I have to turn this in. Have a good week everyone, and I'll try to have the next chapter of ****Capture**** up before my birthday, on the 30th. **


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